“One of the earliest forms of qigong that we have knowledge of is the Five Animal Frolics,” Bouguyon says. After a day of labor, field workers would perform gentle movements to help ease tension in their bodies. They settled on the movements by observing the nearby animals and imitating their motions. Eventually, the practice evolved into an understanding of the TCM concept of meridians, or energy channels, within the body, according to Bouguyon.
Today, people around the world turn to qigong and later iterations like tai chi for health, spiritual, and wellness benefits. By tapping into the parasympathetic nervous system, qigong can help reduce stress and anxiety, which has many implications for health. “Qigong offers the beautiful gift of working to quiet the mind, settle the emotions, and relax into the body,” Bouguyon says. From the traditional Chinese medicine perspective, qigong optimizes the flow of energy in your body to help mitigate or attend to any number of conditions. Take constipation, for example. It can be thought of in relation to the spleen, which regulates the primary digestive process in traditional Chinese medical thought, says Bernard Shannon, a doctor of TCM, the chair of the NQA, and the founder of the International Medical Qigong College in Bradyville, Tennessee. (Shannon notes that the spleen is similar to but conceptualized differently than the conventional medical understanding of the physical organ.) “If you have a yin deficiency, there’s not enough moisture, and so you’re constipated because it’s too dry. If there’s too much yin, it becomes stagnant and can’t move forward. It’s kind of like quicksand — you take a step forward, and it slides back,” Shannon says. (This is one view of constipation from TCM. Other theories and schools of thought that involve qi, blood, and other patterns share similarities to the yin-yang theory but have different approaches.) A practitioner who specializes in using qigong for health purposes, like a licensed acupuncturist and TCM practitioner who also offers qigong, will help you determine potential qigong postures to help move more of that energy toward your spleen to relieve constipation, according to Shannon.
Health and Medical Qigong
Martial Qigong
Spiritual Qigong
Lowers Blood Pressure
The deep breathing, meditation, and relaxation components of qigong may benefit your heart health.
Eases Pain from Knee Osteoarthritis
Improves Well-Being in People With Cancer
Complementary therapies like qigong are often used to help people with cancer cope with the side effects and stress of cancer treatment.
There may also be risks to relying on videos for qigong instruction. For example, if you’re using qigong to help heal a physical injury, you may push too hard when practicing on your own and potentially make the injury worse. “It’s always best to take a class from a teacher who has the ability to check your posture and make sure you’re doing the exercises safely,” Dr. Lin says. Still, online classes may help supplement your in-person practice, Bouguyon notes.
Define Your Goals
“Identifying why you want to try qigong will help inform what type of practice is best for you,” says Michael Sweeney, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, a doctor of medical qigong, the deputy chair of the NQA, and the director of academics at the Red Thread International Qigong Institute in Carbondale, Colorado. If you’re interested in becoming stronger, faster, and more agile, you may want to check out martial forms of qigong. If you’re simply looking for general health benefits, aim for wellness-focused classes in your area. Intrigued by the spiritual side of qigong? Opt for classes that advertise a spiritual practice. And if you want to see how qigong might improve a chronic or acute condition, search for a qualified medical qigong practitioner and have a discussion with your primary care or integrative medicine provider.
Verify the Credentials of Your Teacher
Once you find an online or in-person qigong class you’d like to try, take a peek at the instructor’s credentials. “Qigong is exploding in popularity right now, and in this day and age, it’s becoming more and more difficult to separate celebrity status from actual authority,” Sweeney says. On that note, if someone claims to practice medical qigong, ensure that they’ve had traditional Chinese medical training. This may not be as critical if you’re taking qigong for general health, wellness, and fitness, but it may lead to a better experience overall. “There can be a significant difference in the capabilities and knowledge of a teacher with 100 hours of training and someone with thousands of hours of training experience,” Sweeney notes.
Be Open to the Practice
Lin recommends going into your qigong sessions with curiosity and an open mind. Observe any sensations and changes you experience throughout the practice and be prepared to ask questions. “Learn about the postures, practice them at home [as recommended by your teacher], and know that it will take time to become comfortable with the postures and breathing patterns,” Lin says. Other qigong instructors and classes may have their own approach. When done for general health and well-being, the effects of qigong are, for many, immediately noticeable. “After class, I would say the majority of students feel relaxed but energized,” Bouguyon says. This mellow but uplifted state is generally due to qigong’s focus on the breath. “Any time you do deep-breathing work for 20 minutes or more, hormones are released in the body that relax the muscles and open up the blood vessels to increase deep tissue circulation,” he believes. However, benefits also may increase with repetition. “Over time, you should [in general] see improvement in strength, balance, and flexibility, and also a greater state of calm and overall reduced stress response,” Lin says. If you’re using qigong for a medical purpose, such as injury recovery or pain or symptom management, it may take longer to see significant improvements. “Generally, the more acute the condition, the quicker the results. The more chronic the condition, the longer it may take to see results,” Sweeney says. How long it takes to feel results will ultimately depend on the condition being addressed, how often you practice qigong, how knowledgeable your practitioner is, and what other medications or therapies you’re using as part of an integrative healthcare plan, approved by your doctor.
